“’Here’s where you get your three for one any child may do it no chance to lose make your bets while the arrow of fortune swings all gents accommodated in amounts from two-bits to double-eagles and bets paid on the nail,’ says he.

“‘Red,’ says Aggy, ’I can double our pile right here—­let me have the money.  I know this game.’  You’d hardly believe it, but I dug up.  ‘Double-or-quits?’ says he to the dealer.

“‘Let her go,’ says the dealer; the arrow swung around.  ‘Quits,’ says the dealer, and raked in my dough.  It was all over in one second.

“I grabbed Aggy by the shoulder and took him in the corner for a private talk.  ‘I thought you knew this game?’ says I.

“‘I do,’ says he.  ‘That’s the way it always happens.’  And once more in my life I experienced the peculiar feeling of being altogether at a loss for words.

“‘Aggy,’ says I at last, ’I’ve got a good notion to lay two violent hands on you, and wind you up like an eight-day clock, but rather than make hard feelings between friends, I’ll refrain.  Besides you are a funny cuss, that’s sure.  One thing, boy, you can mark down.  We leave here to-morrow morning.’

“‘All right,’ says Ag.  ’This sporting life is the very devil.  I like out doors as well as the next man, when I get there.’

“So the morrow morning, away we went.  All we had for kit was the picks, shovels, and pans; the rest of our belongings was staying with the Hotel-man until we made a rise.

“Ag said he’d be cussed if he’d walk.  A hundred and fifty miles of a stroll was too many.

“‘But we ain’t got a cent to pay the stage fare,’ says I.

“‘Borrow it of Uncle Hotel-keep,’ says he.

“‘Not by a town site,’ says I.  ’We owe him all we’re going to, at this very minute—­you’ll have to hoof it, that’s all.’

“’I tell you I won’t.  I don’t like to have anybody walk on my feet, not even myself.  I can stand off that stage driver so easy, that you’ll wonder I don’t take it up as a profession.  Now, don’t raise any more objections—­please don’t,’ says he.  ’I can’t tell you how nervous you make me, always finding some fault with everything I try to do.  That’s no way for a hired man to act, let alone a pardner.’

“So, of course, he got the best of me as usual, and we climbed into the stage when she come along.  Now, our bad luck seemed to hold, because you wouldn’t find many men in that country who wouldn’t stake two fellers to a waggon ride wherever they wanted to go, and be pleasant about it, I’d have sure seen that the man got paid, even if Aggy forgot it, but the man that drove us was the surliest brute that ever growled.  When you’d speak to him, he’d say, ’Unh’—­a style of thing that didn’t go well in that part of the country.  I kept my mouth shut, as knowing that I didn’t have the come-up-with weighed on my spirits; but Aggy gave him the jolly.  He only meant it in fun, and there was plenty of reason